While one of the main reasons of the legal stationary was political and economic stagnation
since 1960s, the military government kept the laws as long as they served its benefits
or issued orders and decrees to reinforce control over the country. The 1926 Trade Union
Act gave a good example. The Act set an excessively high threshold required to establish
a legally recognized trade union which was required to have 50 per cent of workers as
members. The 1964 Law Defining the Fundamental Rights and Responsibilities of the People’s
Workers stating the rights of workers has been criticized by ILO for imposing a single
union system. Various orders and decrees were used to suppress people’s mobilization.
Among these orders and decrees were the 1988 Order 2/88 on the Organisation for Building
Law and Order in the State banning gathering more than 5 persons, and the 1988 Order
6/88 known as the Law on the Formation of Associations and Organisations requiring
permission for any forms of organisations even including social clubs (International Trade
Union Confederation, 2009). The Trade Union Act was one of the first laws to be repealed
after the political reform in 2011 together with the Trade Disputes Act, which were replaced
respectively by the Labour Organisation Law in 2011 and the Settlement of Labour Dispute
Law in 2012. The 2008 Constitution provided legal base for these changes: Section 24